Recrop is a massively updated version of the 2012 hit Anticrop, an app that can help you realign and recompose photos after they’ve been taken. It uses an intelligent algorithm to “fill in the blanks,” allowing you to extend your photography even beyond the bounds of what you originally captured.

It’s a smart premise and one that feels like magic when it works.

Of course, the app has its limitations. It struggles to realistically extend people or complex foreground objects. Understandable, really, when you remember that its not actually powered by magic. The app is great for background adjustments, though: adding a little bit of extra sky when your image isn’t quite tall enough for Instagram, or filling in the blurry backdrop of a Portrait mode shot that needs a bit more room to breathe. At these tasks, it excels.

Here, the app allows the user to “crop” the image beyond its normal bounds

It has some other functions, too, less magical but equally useful. Smart straighten tools, grids for perfect alignment, and aspect ratio framing. This reflects the fact that Recrop is expanding to be an all-round composition helper instead of the one-trick pony that Anticrop once was.

It’s a solid update and well worth a look if you haven’t seen this kind of tool at work before. Photoshop boffins will recognize the “content aware fill” tool, but until now there wasn’t much on iOS that could do this kind of job without expertise.